THE NEGRO PROBLEM
Already we have been brought in our study of the immigration problem to
race problems--problems of the relations of races to one another and of
their mutual adjustment. The negro problem is one of many race problems
which the United States has, but because it is the most pressing of all
of our race problems it is frequently spoken of as _the race
problem_. An unsolved factor in all race problems is the biological
influence of racial heredity, and this factor we must seek to understand
and estimate at the very outset of any scientific study of the negro
problem.
Racial Heredity as a Factor in Social Evolution.--We have already seen
that racial heredity is the most important and at the same time the
least known factor in the problem of immigration. While there is still
much disagreement among scientific men as to the importance of racial
heredity in social problems, it can be said that the weight of opinion
inclines to the view that racial heredity is a very real factor, and one
which cannot be left altogether out of account in studying social
problems. The view of Buckle that racial heredity counted for nothing in
explaining the social life of various peoples is not upheld by modern
biologists. On the contrary the biological view would emphasize the
importance of species and racial heredity in all problems connected with
life; thus no one denies that between different species of animals
heredity counts for everything in explaining their life activities, and,
as between the different breeds or races of a single species, no other
position is possible from the biological point of view. Nevertheless it
may be admitted that man no longer lives a purely animal life and that
racial heredity as a factor in his social life may be easily
exaggerated. On the whole, it is a safe rule to follow that racial
heredity should not be invoked to explain the social condition of a
people until practically all other factors have been exhausted.
Nevertheless as between the different races or great varieties of
mankind there must be a great difference in racial heredity. It could
not, indeed, be otherwise, since these different races were developed in
different geographical environments or "areas of characterization."
Natural selection has developed in each race of mankind an innate
character fitted to cope with the environment in which it was evolved.
This is clearly perceptible in regard to their bodily traits, and all
modern research seems to show that their native reactions to different
stimuli also vary greatly, that is, heredity affects their thoughts,
feelings and mode of conduct as well as the color of skin, texture of
hair, and shape of head. In other words, the instincts or native
reactions of the different races of man vary considerably in degree if
not in quality, and from this it follows that their feelings, ideas, and
modes of conduct must also vary considerably.
It may be noted, however, that taking racial heredity into full account
by no means leads to an attitude of fatalism as regards racial problems.
On the contrary modern biology clearly teaches that racial heredity is
modifiable both in the individual and in the race. It is modifiable in
the individual through education or training; it is modifiable in the
race through selection. Therefore racial heredity does not foredoom any
people to remain in a low status of culture; only it must be taken into
account in explaining the cultural conditions of all peoples, and
especially in planning for a people's social amelioration.
The Racial Heredity of the Negro.--It is generally agreed by
anthropologists and biologists that mankind constitutes but a single
species, developed from a single pre-human anthropoid stock. The various
races of mankind have had, therefore, a common origin, but having
developed in different geographical areas they each present certain
peculiar racial traits adapting each to the environment in which it was
developed. Now, the negro race is that part of mankind which was
developed in the tropics. In all the negro's physical and mental make-up
he shows complete adaptation to a tropical environment. The dark color
of his skin, for example, was developed by natural selection to exclude
the injurious actinic rays of the sun. The various ways in which the
negro's tropical environment influenced the development of his mind,
particularly of his instincts, cannot be here entered into in detail.
Suffice to say that the African environment of the ancestors of the
present negroes in the United States deeply stamped itself upon the
mental traits and tendencies of the race. For example, the tropical
environment is generally unfavorable to severe bodily labor. Persons who
work hard in the tropics are, in other words, apt to be eliminated by
natural selection. On the other hand, nature furnishes a bountiful
supply of food without much labor. Hence, the tropical environment of
the negro failed to develop in him any instinct to work, but favored the
survival of those naturally shiftless and lazy. Again, the extremely
high death rate in Africa necessitated a correspondingly high birth rate
in order that any race living there might survive; hence, nature fixed
in the negro strong sexual propensities in order to secure such a high
birth rate.
It is not claimed that the shiftlessness and sensuality of the masses of
the American negroes to-day can be wholly attributed to hereditary
influences, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the African
environment did not have something to do with these two dominant
characteristics of the present American negro. So we might go through
the whole list of the conspicuous traits and tendencies of the American
negro, and in practically every case we would find good reason for
believing that these racial traits and tendencies are at least in part
instinctive, that is, due to the influence of racial heredity.
The question is frequently raised whether the negro is inferior by
nature to the white man or not. It is obvious from what has been said
that the negro may, on the side of his instinctive or hereditary
equipment, be inferior to the white man in his natural adaptiveness to a
complex civilization existing under very different climatic conditions
from those in which he was evolved. This does not mean, however, that
the negro is in any sense a degenerate. On the contrary, from the point
of view of a tropical environment, as we have already made plain, the
negro may be regarded as the white man's superior. It is only in
countries out of his own natural environment, under strange conditions
of life to which he has not yet become biologically adapted, that the
negro is inferior to the white man. In Africa he is the white man's
superior if we adopt survival as the test of superiority.
Influence of Slavery on the Negro.--There is no longer any doubt that
the influence of slavery on the negro, as a form of industry, was both
beneficent and maleficent. The negroes brought to America by the slave
traders were subject to a very severe artificial selection, which,
perhaps, secured a better type of negro physically on the whole, and a
more docile type mentally; but the chief beneficent influence of slavery
on the negro was that it taught him to work, to some extent at least.
Moreover, it gave the negro the Anglo-Saxon tongue and the rudiments of
our morality, religion, and civilization.
On the other hand, slavery did not fit the individual or the race for a
life of freedom, and did not raise moral standards much above those of
Africa. The monogamic form of the family was, to be sure, enforced upon
the slaves, but the family life was often broken up; for even when the
owner of the slaves was kind-hearted and humane, on his death his
property would be sold and the families of his slaves scattered. Under
such conditions it is not surprising that the negro learned little of
family morality. Again, being property himself, the negro could not be
taught properly to appreciate the rights of property. Finally slavery
failed to develop in the slave that self-mastery and self-control which
are necessary for free social life. Admirable as slavery was in some
ways as a school for an uncultivated people, it failed utterly in other
ways; and it surely should not be difficult to devise methods of
training at the present time which are superior to anything that slavery
as a school for the industrial training of the negro could possibly have
accomplished.
Statistics of the Negro Problem in the United States. The following
table will show the percentage of negroes in the population of the
United States at different decades (Negro, in census terminology,
includes all persons of negro descent):
Per cent.
1790 ................................... 19.37
1800 ................................... 18.88
1810 ................................... 19.03
1830 ................................... 18.10
1840 ................................... 16.84
1850 ................................... 15.69
1860 ................................... 14.13
1870 ................................... 12.60
1880 ................................... 13.12
1890 ................................... 11.93
1900 ................................... 11.63
In 1860 the total number of negroes in the population of the United
States was 4,441,000. Forty years later, in 1900, the number had just
doubled, having reached 8,840,000. Nevertheless, it will be seen from
the above table that the percentage of negroes in the total population
has steadily diminished, although the negro population doubled between
1860 and 1900. Between 1890 and 1900 the comparative rates of increase
for the whites and negroes were: whites, 21.49 Per cent; negroes, 18.10
per cent.
Geographical Distribution of the Negroes. The negro problem would not be
so acute in certain sections of the country if negroes were distributed
evenly over the country instead of being massed as they are in certain
sections. Ninety per cent of the total number of negroes in the country
live in the South Atlantic and South Central states. Moreover, over
eighty per cent live in the so-called "Black Belt" states,--the "Black
Belt" being a chain of counties stretching from Virginia to Texas in
which over half of the population are negroes. The following table shows
the percentage of negro population in these states of the "Black Belt":
Per cent.
Alabama............................................. 45.2
Arkansas............................................ 28.0
Florida............................................. 43.6
Georgia............................................. 46.7
Louisiana........................................... 47.1
Mississippi......................................... 58.5
North Carolina...................................... 33.0
South Carolina...................................... 58.4
Tennessee........................................... 23.8
Texas............................................... 20.4
Virginia............................................ 35.7
While in only two of these states there is an absolute preponderance of
negroes, yet these statistics give no idea of the massing of negroes in
certain localities. In Washington County, Mississippi, for example, the
negroes number 44,143, the whites 5002; in Beaufort County, South
Carolina, the negroes number 32,137, the whites 3349. In many counties
in the "Black Belt" more than three fourths of the population are
negroes. It is in these states that the negro population is rapidly
increasing.
_Increase of Negro in States since 1860_. The following table will
show the percentage of negroes in the population in former slave-holding
states in 1860 and in 1900:
States 1860 1900
Per cent Per cent
Alabama .................. 45.4 45.2
Arkansas ................. 25.6 28
Florida .................. 44.6 43.6
Georgia .................. 44 40.7
Kentucky ................. 20.4 13.3
Louisiana ................ 49.5 47.1
Maryland ................. 24.9 19.8
Mississippi .............. 55.3 58.5
Missouri ................. 10 5.2
North Carolina ........... 30.4 33
South Carolina ........... 58.6 58.4
Tennessee ................ 25.5 23.8
Texas .................... 30.3 20.4
Virginia ................. 42 35.7
It will be noted that the states whose relative negro population has
increased since the war are Arkansas, Mississippi, and Georgia, while in
South Carolina and Alabama, the relative proportion of negroes has stood
stationary.
In the decade from 1890 to 1900, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Arkansas of the above states showed a more rapid increase of their negro
population than of their white population. In other Southern states,
however, the white population increased more rapidly than the negro
population, although in Georgia both races increased about equally.
In certain Northern states the census of 1900 shows the negro population
to be increasing much more rapidly than the white population. In New
York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Massachusetts, for example,
the negro population increased about twice as fast as the white
population, but the number of negroes in these states was still in 1900
comparatively small, New York having 99,000; Pennsylvania, 156,000,
Illinois, 85,000, Indiana, 57,000; and Massachusetts, 31,000. This
increase of negro population in certain Northern states is, of course,
due to the immigration of the negro into those states, and may be
regarded on the whole as a fortunate movement, serving to distribute the
negro population more evenly over the whole country, were it not that
the negro death rate in these Northern states is so very high that the
negroes who go to these states do not as a rule maintain their numbers.
_The Urban Negro Population._--Seventeen per cent of the total
negro population in 1900 lived in cities of over 8000 population while
the remainder lived in small towns and country districts. The following
great cities had a high percentage of negroes:
Per cent.
Memphis ............................... 48.8
Washington ............................ 31.1
New Orleans ........................... 27.1
Louisville ............................ 19.1
St. Louis ............................. 6.2
Philadelphia .......................... 4.8
Baltimore ............................. 15.6
Some smaller Southern cities have, of course, a much higher percentage
of negroes in their population, such as Jacksonville, Florida, 57.1 per
cent; Charleston, South Carolina, 56.5 per cent; Savannah, Georgia, 51.8
per cent. On the whole, however, it will be seen that the mass of the
negroes in the United States still live in rural districts, although
directly after the Civil War and again within recent years there has
been a considerable movement of the negroes to the cities. This is
extremely significant for the social conditions of the race, because the
negro, while not adapted in general to the environment of civilization,
is still less adapted to the environment which the modern city affords
him.
The Social Condition of the Negroes in the United States.--(1)
_Intermixture of Races._ Ever since the negro came to this country
he has been having his racial characteristics modified by the infusion
of white blood. The census of 1890 attempted to make an estimate of the
number of negroes of mixed blood in the United States. The number
returned as being of mixed blood was 1,132,000, but all authorities
agree that this number understates the actual number. The census
officials themselves repudiated these figures as being entirely
misleading. Experts in ethnology have estimated that from one third to
one half of the negroes in the United States show traces of white
intermixture. The lower estimate, that one third of the negroes of the
United States have more or less white blood, is quite generally accepted
by those who have carefully investigated the matter. Of course the
proportion of negroes of mixed blood varies greatly in different
localities. In communities in the border states frequently more than one
half of the negroes show marked traces of white intermixture. But in the
isolated rural regions of the South, where the negroes predominate, the
full-blood negro is by far the more common type.
This infusion of white blood into a portion of the negro population is
significant sociologically. It is the negroes of mixed blood who are
ambitious socially and who present some of the most acute phases of the
negro problem. It is from the mixed bloods that the leaders of the race
in this country have come. The pure negro without intermixture has
hitherto seemed incapable of leadership. Such men as Booker T.
Washington, Professor Du Bois, and most other negro leaders have a
considerable mixture of white blood. A list of 2200 negro authors was
once compiled by the Librarian of Congress, and investigation showed
that with very few exceptions these negro authors came from the mixed
stock. Indeed, practically all of the negroes who have been eminent in
literature, science, art, or statesmanship have come from this class of
mixed bloods.
But the infusion of white blood has also in some ways been a detriment
to the negro. The illegitimate offspring resulting from the unions of
white fathers and negro mothers are frequently the product of conditions
of vice. The consequence is that the child of mixed origin frequently
has a degenerate heredity and, coming into the world as a bastard, is
more or less in disfavor with both races; hence the social environment
of the mulatto as well as his heredity is oftentimes peculiarly
unfavorable. It is not surprising, therefore, to find among the
mulattoes a great amount of constitutional diseases and a great tendency
to crime and immorality. Again mulatto women are more frequently
debauched by white men than the pure blood negro women, and for this
reason negro women of mixed blood are more apt to be immoral. So we see
that while the mixed bloods have furnished the leaders of their race,
they have also furnished an undue proportion of its vice and crime. This
is exactly what we should expect when we understand the social
conditions existing between the races and the origin and social
environment of the mulatto.
The crime and vice and constitutional diseases of the mulatto do not
prove that degeneracy results from the intermixture of the two races, as
was once supposed. On the contrary, as we have already seen, all of
these things result from the fact that the crossing of the races takes
place under socially abnormal conditions, that is, under conditions of
vice. This is not, however, true in all cases and particularly it was
not true of all intermixture that took place under the regime of
slavery. Rather intermixture under such circumstances approached not
vice, as we understand the word, but polygyny. Consequently some of the
best blood of the South runs in the veins of some of the mulattoes.
Again, we have examples from other countries of the crossing of the two
races, negro and white, without physical degeneracy. In the West Indies
and in Brazil this crossing is frequently taking place, and many of the
best families of those countries have a slight amount of negro blood in
their veins. From instances like this, gathered from all over the world,
it has generally been concluded by anthropologists that no evil
physiological results necessarily follow the intermixture of races, even
the most diverse, but that all supposed physiological evils coming from
the intermixture of races really come from social rather than from
physiological causes.
From the point of view of the white race and from the point of view of
the negro race such racial intermixture, outside of the bounds of law,
may be for many reasons undesirable. But we are here concerned with
noting only the social effect of the intermixture that has gone on in
the past; and we see that on the one hand it has resulted in creating a
class of so-called negroes in whom white blood and the ambitions and
energy of the white race predominate, and on the other hand it has also
resulted in creating a degenerate mixed stock who furnish the majority
of criminals and vicious persons belonging to the so-called negro race.
(2) _Criminality of the Negro._ One of the most important features
of the negro problem in the United States is the strong tendency among
the negroes toward crime; and this, as we have just seen, is especially
manifest in those of mixed origin. Professor Willcox has shown that in
1890 there were in the South six white prisoners to every ten thousand
whites, but twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes,
while in the North there were twelve white prisoners to every ten
thousand whites, but sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand
negroes. These statistics show that the negro is everywhere more
criminal than the white, and that his tendency toward crime increases as
we go North, doubtless largely because in the North he is in a strange
and more complex environment and finds greater difficulty in making
social adjustments. Moreover, negro crime is increasing. From 1880 to
1890 the negro prisoners of the United States increased 29 per cent,
while the white prisoners only increased 8 per cent. Later statistics
show the same result. As yet there has been no check to the steady
increase of negro crime in this country since the Civil War. In some
Northern cities, like Chicago, in some years the number of arrests of
negroes has equaled one third of the total negro population of those
cities. The criminality of the negro is doubtless in part a matter of
social environment, because we see that negro crime increases in cities
and in the more complex Northern communities; but it is also to some
extent a matter of the negro's heredity.
Of course vice accompanies crime among the American negroes. The
statistics of illegitimacy in Washington cited by Hoffman in his _Race
Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro_ show that in fifteen
years in Washington, from 1879 to 1894, the percentage of illegitimate
births among the whites was 2.9 per cent, while the percentage among the
negroes was 22.5. In other words, from one fifth to one fourth of all
the negro births in Washington during that fifteen-year period were
illegitimate. Statistics collected in other cities show approximately
the same result. Of course statistics of illegitimacy are not exactly
the same thing as statistics of vice, but they, at any rate, throw a
light upon the moral condition of the negro in this regard, and
particularly show the demoralization of his family life.
(3) _Negro Pauperism._ We have no good statistics on negro
pauperism, but such as we have seem to indicate that the state of
dependence of the negro is very great. In the city of Washington, where
30 per cent of the population is made up of negroes, 84 per cent of the
pauper burials are those of negroes; and in Charleston, where 57 per
cent of the population are negroes, 96.7 per cent of the pauper burials
are those of negroes. In nearly all communities where organized
charities exist the negroes contribute to the dependent population far
out of proportion to their numbers. It is safe to say that from 50 to 75
per cent of the total negro population of the United States live in
poverty as distinguished from pauperism, that is, live under such
conditions that physical and mental efficiency cannot be maintained.
(4) _Negro Vital Statistics_. The negro death and birth rates are
both very high. No definite statistics of negro death and birth rates
have been kept except in cities and in a few rural districts. In Alabama
in a few registered districts the negro birth rate has been found to be
equal to about twice the death rate. On the other hand it is a curious
fact that in the North the negro fails to reproduce sufficiently to keep
up his numbers, consequently the negro population in Northern states
would die out if it were not for immigration. In Massachusetts in 1888,
for example, there were 511 negro births and 579 negro deaths.
Statistics from other Northern communities tell the same story.
The vital statistics of Southern cities show that the negro death rate
is very much higher than the white death rate. In ten Southern cities,
for example, Hoffman gives the average death rate for the whites as 20
per thousand for the white population, and for the negroes as 32.6 per
thousand of the negro population. These same cities in 1901-1905 showed
an annual average death rate for the whites of 17.5 and for the negroes
of 28.4. In several cities the negro death rate is nearly twice that of
the whites. When these mortality statistics are analyzed, moreover,
while they show that negro mortality at all ages is greater than white
mortality, it is greatest among negro children under fifteen years of
age. This is of course largely because of the ignorant manner in which
negroes care for their children, but it also indicates that natural
selection is at work among the American negroes rapidly eliminating the
biologically unfit.
_Conclusions from Negro Vital Statistics._ Three important
conclusions may be drawn from the negro vital and population statistics
which are well worth emphasizing. (1) The negro population is not
increasing so fast as the white, owing largely to its high death rate,
yet it is increasing, and there is no indication as yet that the negro
population will decrease. It is probable, indeed, that at the end of the
twentieth century the negro population of the United States will be
between twenty and thirty millions. The view of some students of the
negro problem that the negro is destined to an early extinction in this
country is merely a speculative hypothesis, and as yet is not
substantiated by any statistical facts.
(2) While the negro is destined to be with us always, so far as we can
see, yet owing to the fact of intermixture of races he will be less and
less a pure negro, so that at the end of the twentieth century the
negroes in the United States will be much nearer the white type than at
the present time.
(3) The high death rate among the negroes indicates that a rapid process
of natural selection is going on among them. Now, natural selection
means the elimination of the unfit,--the dying out of those who cannot
adapt themselves to their environment. This selective process will tend
toward the survival of the more fit elements among the negroes, and,
therefore, towards bringing the negro up to the standard of the whites.
The misery and vice which we see among the present American negroes are
simply in a large degree the expression of the working of a process of
natural selection among them. It would be preferable, however, if the
white race could by education and other means substitute to some degree
at least artificial selection for the miseries and brutality of the
natural process of eliminating the unfit. This the superior race should
do to protect itself as well as to raise the negro.
Industrial Conditions Among the Negroes.--Recently a committee of the
American Economic Association estimated that all of the taxable property
in the United States owned by negroes amounted to $300,000,000, or about
$33.00 per head,--this estimate being based upon the 1900 census
returns. Thirty-three dollars per head of the negro population seems of
course very small when compared to the $1,000.00 per capita owned by the
whites; but we must remember that the negro at his emancipation was in
no way equipped to acquire property, and, with the exception of a few
freedmen, the negro at the close of the war had no property whatsoever.
In a few cases their old masters set up the emancipated negroes with
small farms. In 1900 there were 746,715 farms occupied by negroes either
as tenants or owners. Twenty-five per cent of these farms were owned by
negroes and about ten per cent were owned unencumbered.
There are, of course, two ways of looking at these statistics. They are
discouraging if we care to look at them in that way, but on the other
hand, if we consider the disadvantageous position in which the negro was
placed at the close of the Civil War, the statistics may be taken as
showing a marked advance.
It must be said here that, as Booker Washington has urged, the negro
problem is largely of an industrial nature. It is the unsatisfactoriness
of the negro as a worker, as a producing agent, that gives rise largely
to the friction between the two races. The negro has not yet become
adapted to a system of free contract and is frequently unreliable as a
laborer. This breeds continued antagonism between the races. It is only
necessary here to remark that when the negro becomes an efficient
producer and a property owner the negro problem will be practically
solved.
Educational Progress Among the Negroes.--The educational progress among
the negroes has been more satisfactory than their industrial progress.
At the time of the emancipation 95 per cent of all the negroes in the
United States were illiterate, since nearly all the slave states had
laws forbidding the education of negroes. Since the emancipation there
has been a rapid decrease of illiteracy. In 1880 seventy per cent of the
negroes above the age of ten years were still reported as illiterate. In
1890, 56.8 per cent; and in 1900, 44.6 per cent. The number of
illiterate negro voters in the United States in 1900 was 47.3 per cent
of the total number of negro males above the age of twenty-one. The per
cent of illiterate negro voters ranged all the way in former
slave-holding states from 61.3 per cent in Louisiana to 31.9 per cent in
Missouri, while in Massachusetts the percentage of negro illiteracy was
only 10 per cent.
In the school year 1907-08, in the sixteen Southern states there were
1,665,000 negro children enrolled in the public schools, this number
being 54.36 per cent of the negro population of the school age (five to
eighteen). The number of white children enrolled was 4,692,000, or 70.34
per cent of the white population of school age. But these statistics
fail to indicate the utter inadequacy of many provisions for the
education of the negro children. In many districts of the South the
negro schools are open only from three to five months in a year,--the
equipment of the school being very inadequate and the teacher poorly
trained. Nevertheless the sixteen Southern states have spent, since the
emancipation, over $175,000,000 to maintain separate schools for
negroes, a much larger sum than all that has been given by Northern
philanthropy. In addition to the common schools for negroes there were
in 1907-08 one hundred and thirty-five institutions for the higher
education of the negro with an annual income of over $2,800,000. In
these there were 4185 negro students receiving collegiate or
professional training, 17,279 were receiving a high school course, and
23,160 industrial training. The latter figure is important because it
indicates that in 1907-08 a little more than one per cent of the total
number of negro children in school were receiving industrial training.
The percentage is increasing, through the fact that industrial training
is being introduced into a number of the city schools for negroes, both
North and South; but at present not much over one per cent of the negro
children are receiving industrial training.
Political Conditions.--Not much need be said concerning the political
condition of the negro. The movement to disfranchise the negro by legal
means came in 1890 when the new Mississippi constitution adopted in that
year provided that every voter should be able to read or interpret a
clause in the constitution of the United States. Since then a majority
of the Southern states and practically all of the states of the "Black
Belt" have embodied either in their constitutions or laws provisions for
disfranchising the negro voter. Louisiana made the provision that a
person must be able to read and write or be a lineal descendant of some
person who voted prior to 1860. This is the famous "Grandfather Clause,"
which has since proved popular in a number of Southern states. While
these laws and constitutional provisions have evidently been designed to
disfranchise the negro voter, the Federal Supreme Court has upheld them
in spite of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Regarding all of this legislation it may be said that it has had perhaps
both good and bad effects. In so far as it has tended to eliminate the
negro from politics this has been a good effect, but it has oftentimes
rather succeeded in keeping the negro question in politics; and the
evident injustice and inequality of some of the laws must, it would
seem, react to lower the whole tone of political morality in the South.
Again, the very provision of these laws to insure the disfranchisement
of the illiterate negro has tended in some instances, at least, to
discourage negro education, because the promoters of these laws in most
cases did not aim to exclude simply the illiterate negro vote, but
practically the entire negro vote. It is evident that a party designing
to disfranchise the negro through this means would not be very zealous
for the negro's education.
Proposed Solutions of the Negro Problem.--Among the various solutions
proposed from time to time for the negro problem, more or less
seriously, are: (1) admission at once of the negroes to full social
equality with the whites; (2) deportation to Africa or South America;
(3) colonization in some state or in territory adjacent to the United
States; (4) extinction by natural selection; (5) popular education.
Regarding all these solutions it must be said at once that they are
either impossible or fatuous. They may be dismissed, then, without
further discussion. Mr. Booker T. Washington has said that the negro is
bound to become adjusted to our civilization because he is surrounded by
the white man's civilization on every hand. This optimistic view, which
seems to dismiss the negro problem as requiring no solution, is,
however, not well supported by many facts, as we have just seen.
Everywhere we have evidence that the negro when left to himself, reverts
to a condition approximating his African barbarism, and the statistics
of increasing vice and crime which we have just given show quite
conclusively that the negro is not becoming adjusted to the white man's
civilization in many cases in spite of considerable efforts which are
being put forth in his behalf. While we are very far from taking a
pessimistic view toward this or any other social problem, we believe
that most of the solutions that have thus far been tried or urged are
failures, and that more radical methods need to be adopted if the negro
becomes a useful social and industrial element in our society.
As we have already seen, the negro is still essentially unadjusted to
our civilization, and it would not be too much to say that the masses of
negroes in this country are still not far removed from barbarism, though
living in the midst of civilization. Slavery failed, as we have already
seen, to render the mass of negroes capable of participating in our
culture, and all that has been done for the negro since emancipation has
likewise failed to adjust the mass of the race to the social conditions
in which they find themselves. We may say, then, roughly, without any
injustice to the negro, that the negro masses of this country are still
essentially an uncultivated or a "nature" people living in the midst of
civilization. The negro problem, in other words, is not greatly
different from what it would be if the present negroes were descendants
of savage aborigines that had peopled this country before the white man
came. The problem of the negro and of the Indian, and of all the
uncivilized races, is essentially the same. The problem is, how a
relatively large mass of people, inferior in culture and perhaps also
inferior in nature, can be adjusted relatively to the civilization of a
people much their superior in culture; how the industrially inefficient
nature man can be made over into the industrially efficient civilized
man.
Undoubtedly the primary adjustment to be made by the American negro is
the adjustment on the economic side. Only when the negro becomes
adjusted to the economic side of his life will there be a solid
foundation for the development of something higher. People must be
taught how to be efficient, self-sustaining, productive members of
society economically before they can be taught to be good citizens. The
American negro in other words must be taught to be "good for something"
as well as to be good. The failure of common-school education with the
negro has been largely for the reason that it has failed to help him in
any efficient way to adjust himself industrially. Oftentimes indeed it
has had the contrary effect and the slightly educated negro has been the
one who has been least valuable as a producer. The common-school
education has not been such a failure with the white child, for the
reason that the white child has been taught industry and morality at
home, but these the negro frequently fails to get in his home life.
Moreover, the common-school education of the white child has usually
been simply the foundation upon which after school days he, as a
citizen, has built up a wider culture. But the negro, on account of his
environment, if not naturally, has proved incapable of going on with his
education and building on it after getting out of school. Moreover, as
we have already noted, under the present complex conditions of our
social life the common school is no longer an efficient socializing
agent, even for the white children. The present school system is a
failure, not only for the negro race, but also, though not in the same
degree, for the white race. Popular education on the old lines can never
do very much to solve the negro problem.
This does not lead, however, to the conclusion that all training and
education for the negro race is foredoomed to failure. On the contrary
all the experiments of missionaries in dealing with uncivilized races
has led to the conclusion that an all-round education in which
industrial and moral training are made prominent can relatively adjust
to our civilization even the most backward of human races. Wherever the
missionaries have introduced industrial education and adjusted their
converts to what is perhaps the fundamental side of our civilization,
the economic, they have met with the largest degree of success. This
success of missionary endeavors along this line has led to the
establishment of similar industrial training schools for the negro in
this country, and it must be said regarding such schools for the negro
as Hampton and Tuskegee that they have proved an even more unqualified
success than their predecessors originated by the missionaries. But
these schools are as yet very far from solving the negro problem in this
country, for the reason, as we have already seen, that they affect such
a relatively small proportion of the negro population. Only about one
per cent of negro children at the present time are probably receiving
industrial training.
It should be remarked that this industrial training in no way precludes
an all-round education. It is not meant that industrial education shall
replace all other forms of education, but rather that it shall be added
to literary education in order to enrich the educational process; and it
may be remarked also that industrial training, while of itself having a
strong uplifting moral influence, is not sufficient to socialize without
explicit moral teaching being also added thereto. Schools that attempted
to give such an all-round education to negro children would, of course,
in no way cut off the possibility of higher and professional education
for the small number who are especially fitted, and who should be
encouraged to go on with such studies.
Accepting, then, without qualification the now widespread view that
industrial training coupled with an all-round education is the best
possible solution of the negro problem, let us look into the practical
difficulties which confront any attempt to apply such a solution at the
present time. These difficulties may be summed up under three heads: (1)
The difficulty of securing adequately equipped schools to give such
training; (2) the difficulty of obtaining teachers who are qualified to
give this training, and who have the right spirit; (3) the present lack
of intelligent coöperation by the members of both races.
As regards the first of these difficulties, it must be said that it is
under our present system of school administration practically
insuperable. Adequately equipped schools for industrial education will
cost a great deal of money,--money which the whites of the South will
probably not be willing to give for many years to come, and which we
think they should not be asked to give. As we have already seen, there
are more illiterate native whites in the South than in any other section
of the Union. This is due in part to the effects of the war which left a
majority of the Southern communities poverty-stricken, and in many
communities there is still not yet sufficient money to maintain proper
school facilities, even on the old lines; much less can it be expected
that such communities can start at once industrial schools for the
training of negro children.
As regards the difficulty of obtaining properly trained teachers with a
proper spirit to do this work, it must be said that as yet these
teachers could not be found, and certainly they could not within the
negro race. The mass of negro teachers are still so far below even the
low standards of the white schools that not one half of them would be
licensed to teach if the same standards were applied to them as to the
whites. Moreover, through the increase of race friction white teachers
have gradually, since the Civil War, been excluded from negro schools.
This has been brought about largely also by the negroes demanding these
positions for themselves. But it is an old adage that "if the blind lead
the blind both will fall into the ditch," and it would seem that a
majority of negro teachers are unqualified for their task of civilizing
and socializing their race; hence one reason for the failure of the
negro common school. It would seem also that, while competent negro
teachers should be encouraged in every way, white teachers should not be
absolutely excluded from negro schools; and particularly that white
teachers would be necessary if industrial and moral training were to be
emphasized in the education of the negro. This brings us to the third
difficulty,--the lack of intelligent coöperation by the members of both
races. Unfortunately the negroes do not care for the newer education,
the education which emphasizes industrial training. Most of them, misled
by unwise leaders, prefer the education of the older type and think that
industrial training will only fit them to be "hewers of wood and drawers
of water" to the whites. On the other hand, the masses of uneducated
Southern people also do not wish the new education for the negro,
because they believe that it will give him superior advantages over the
white children. They fail to see that anything that is done for a
depressed element in society, like the negro, will ultimately benefit
all society. They are, therefore, not willing to tax themselves to bring
about, even gradually, the new education for the negro. While educated
Southern people have supported Booker T. Washington in his propaganda
for the industrial training of the negro, it is notorious that
Washington's ideas have met with as much opposition from the uneducated
whites as from the negroes themselves.
On the whole, however, while the situation is a difficult one, it is
not, as we have already seen, one which justifies pessimism. Time is the
great element in the solution of all problems, and it must be especially
an element in the solution of this negro problem. A beginning has been
made toward the training and the education of the negro in the right
way, and it may be hoped that from centers like Hampton and Tuskegee the
influence will gradually radiate which will in time bring about the
popularization of industrial education. What is needed, perhaps, most of
all is sufficient funds to carry on wider and wider experiments along
these lines. The Southern states should not be expected to furnish these
funds. They have already done their full share in attempting to educate
the negro. The negro problem is a national problem, and as a national
problem it should be dealt with by the Federal Government. The burden of
educating the negro for citizenship should rest primarily upon the whole
nation and not upon any section or community, since the whole nation is
responsible for the negro's present condition. The trouble is, however,
again, that the mass of the Southern people would at the present time
undoubtedly resent any attempt on the part of the Federal Government to
aid in the education of the negro. The question, therefore, ultimately
becomes a question of educating the whites and forming a proper public
sentiment regarding the education of the negro. When the leaders of both
races once become united on a plan of training the negro for efficient
citizenship, undoubtedly the funds will be forthcoming. While the negro
question is, therefore, from one point of view primarily a question of
the industrial training and adjustment of the negro, from another point
of view it is a moral question which can never be solved until the
superior race comes to take a right attitude toward the inferior race,
namely, the attitude of service.
SELECT REFERENCES
_For brief reading:_
HOFFMAN, _Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro,_ Vol.
XI of Pub. of Am. Economic Ass'n.
STONE, _Studies in the American Race Problem._
BAKER, _Following the Color Line._
_For more extended reading:_
DOWD, _The Negro Races._
DU BOIS, _The Negroes of Philadelphia._
DU BOIS, editor, _The Atlanta University Publications._
KEANE, _Ethnology._
KEANE, _Man, Past and Present._
MERRIAM, _The Negro and the Nation._
PAGE, _The Negro: the Southerner's Problem._
SMITH, _The Color Line._
TILLINGHAST, _The Negro in Africa and America,_ Pub. Am. Economic
Ass'n, 3d series, Vol. III.
WASHINGTON, _The Future of the American Negro._